When teachers need to be laid off, should performance determine who gets to stay instead of seniority?

Advocacy group StudentsFirst this week kicked off its “Save Great Teachers” campaign to eliminate “last in, first out” policies that the group believes “rids the nation's schools of effective teachers.”

The group believes that up to 160,000 teachers nationwide could lose their jobs because of budget cuts this year, and because the majority of states and school districts have such policies, “students stand to lose some of the best teachers in the country.”

“During difficult fiscal times like these, we must not turn a blind eye to the compelling connection between teachers and our future long-term prosperity,” Rhee said in a release. “If we want to come out on the other side of this crisis with a stronger public education system, we have to do everything possible to keep our best teachers in the classroom. And LIFO policies actively work against this goal.”

Under Rhee's leadership, Washington, D.C.’s school district in 2009 became the first in the nation to abandon reverse seniority when 266 teachers were cut as part of a budget-cutting effort, Dropout Nation editor RiShawn Biddle wrote on National Review Online.

Biddle notes that the Los Angeles Unified School District “has abandoned the use of reverse seniority in 45 schools that serve its poorest students; it moved to do as part of a settlement of a suit filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union over the impact of layoffs on student achievement at three schools. LAUSD is also lobbying California state officials to abolish the state law requiring the use of reverse seniority.”

Grand Rapids educators have argued that such rules have hampered reforms. Spokesman John Helmholdt said the Grand Rapids University Preparatory Academy had a specially trained staff – all of whom were displaced one year because districtwide layoffs.

He favors tweaking the laws to allow flexibility for special districts with unique programs, allowing such staff to remain in place regardless of their hire date.

But some believe such policies are necessary to keep teachers from being pushed out for reasons that have noting to do with academics.

Finding a way to best evaluate teachers remains a national debate. If teachers were to be retained based on performance, what system would be used? Would teachers stay away from potentially challenging schools for fear that lower tests scores should put them at the head of the line?

Or, would districts looking to save money simply lay off veterans first because they are the most expensive?

“The theory behind LIFO is that it precludes various forms of favoritism. Perhaps teachers shouldn't be spending their time fighting over who gets to wash the principal's car, build an extension on his house, or spend Tuesday afternoons with him in some secluded rendezvous,” wrote veteran New York teacher Arthur Goldstein on The Huffington Post. “If LIFO were removed, would all decisions be merit-based?”